A TAUK with Matt Jalbert: It’s Time To Feed The Beast

Photos From TAUK

TAUK is a four part instrumental band from Oyster Bay, New York, consisting of Matt Jalbert (Guitar), Charlie Dolan (Bass), Alric “A.C.” Carter (Keys), and Isaac Teel (Drums). They have been rocking stages for years with their instrumental progressive rock, funk, jazz, and hip-hop infused sound. TAUK has recently embarked on a big fall tour full of festivals and headlining shows and has plans to release Real TAUK Vol. 3 from their previous spring tour! Guitarist Matt Jalbert has taken some time to sit down with us to talk about Resonance Music & Arts Festival, their new Feed The Beast Tour, as well as a few other surprises!

Festival Squad: First off thank you Matt for taking the time to talk with Festival Squad about some exciting things coming up for you guys this fall!This month you guys kicked off your Feed The Beast Tour 2019. Up next is Wormtown Music Fest followed by Resonance Music and Arts Festival in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. You guys have been performing at Resonance since the beginning! I think the earliest I saw was in 2014 when Resonance was still at Frontier Ranch. What is it about Resonance that keeps you guys coming back every year?

Matt Jalbert: It’s just a great festival! The festival is getting bigger every year it’s put on and I think that says a lot about a festival when more and more people want to come each year. Each year we play Resonance it just feels like one of the more special festivals of the summer. There’s just something about the energy there! Each time we play a set there it just feels really good. Last year we tried something different, a Beatles cover set that went over really well. People seemed pretty psyched about it and it was a cool opportunity for us to try something different! This year we thought we would follow that up with another cover set and this time kinda get the crowd involved in picking the band we cover!

TAUKing Beatles Set Resonance 2018

FS: You guys announced the poll for this year’s tribute set about a month ago on your Instagram and asked people to comment which one they would like to see you guys take on. The options for this year’s cover set include Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and songs about Fire. Do you guys know which one it will be yet?!

MJ: No, not yet! Were giving it a little more time for people to get their votes in. I think probably soon well sit down and tally up the votes. It seems like a lot of people have voted for each of them so who knows which one it will be!

FS: Is there one that you are leaning towards?! There’s a couple fantastic guitarists in there!

MJ: I think they all would be great! Obviously as a guitarist, for me, Hendrix has been a huge influence on me and was definitely one of my first idols and inspirations so that would be a really fun one to take on. With Floyd there’s so much material there that we can do as a band that would be a lot of fun. Then the Fire theme is any song with Fire in the title or in the lyrics which opens up even more options for us! So I don’t really have a preference on which one we do because I think whatever one it is well do something unique with it!

FS: I hope it’s Hendrix! Alright, one more question about Resonance. You guys have been there from its first transition from Frontier Ranch to Legend Valley. What do you think about Resonance’s next move to Cooper’s Lake in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania? Have you ever been to Cooper’s Lake?

MJ: I don’t think we’ve ever been there! I’m trying to remember if we’ve ever done anything there but the name isn’t ringing a bell at the moment. I think it’s one of those things that you don’t really know until you get there! I’m hoping for the best and I’m sure if the festival felt like it was the right move for the right reasons then It will all work out!

FS: Resonance has already successfully made one move so this one should be even easier!

MJ: Yeah exactly!

FS: Ok, so onto the rest of your Feed The Beast tour. You’re set to perform at a number of other music festivals this fall (Wormtown, Progtoberfest, The Moonshiners Ball, Hulaween) You guys are headlining Progtoberfest and The Moonshiners Ball! Are there any of these festivals that stick out or that you’re a little extra excited for?

MJ: Yeah it’s definitely getting to that time of the year where music festival season is kind of winding down a bit so well definitely enjoy them while they last! I know we did Wormtown last year and it was a lot of fun. This year I believe were performing a little later which I think for us will be exciting to get the lights involved! Hulaween is the last fest on the tour and is going to be great! It’s definitely one of our favorite spots in Florida every time were down there and the lineup looks awesome so that will be great!

FS: What other shows on this Feed The Beast Tour stand out to you?

MJ: There are a few places were excited to get back to that we haven’t been in a while! The Brooklyn Bowl is a cool hometown show for us to go back for so we’re really excited for that two night run! That’s really the start of us hitting the road and getting back into our own shows and into the different clubs. I know that’s something we’ve been itching to do. The festivals are a lot of fun but for us it’s nice being able to do our own shows in an environment that’s a little more controlled. You have more time for soundcheck and can set up your own rig and gear every night so those consistencies are really nice.

FS: The last section of the Feed The Beast Tour sends you out west to co-headline nine shows with JAZZ PHSH. Can you tell me a little more about Jazz Phsh and that part of the tour? Have you ever performed with them before?

MJ: A.C. our keyboard player has done a few shows with them before and I think he might be playing some of the nights with them if not all of them during the run. But yeah they’re great! I haven’t had the chance to see them yet but I’m definitely familiar with what they do. They play from the Phish catalog and do their own arrangement on it and the band usually gets a really killer lineup of musicians to take part in it. I don’t exactly know what the lineup is for them on this tour but I’ve heard a few names floating around. I am definitely excited for it! It will be a lot of great nights of music.

FS: You guys end your tour with a two night run in Seattle, WA! Will we see a TAUKing Phish Tribute set?!

MJ: Oh man thinking ahead of the game! That’s a good question! I don’t know, you never know what could happen! I think when you get all of these musicians together, especially for an extended run, sit ins or some sort of collaborations are inevitable. It’s just fun when you’re with other people who you respect and it’s exciting to watch them play and mix it up a little. So who knows what could happen!

FS: Speaking of tours, you guys are planning on releasing Real TAUK, Vol 3, a highlight compilation of the favorite live moments from your spring tour. Can you tell me a little more about this project and when and where this will be available? Also access to Real TAUK Vol 1&2?

MJ: Yeah! We are still putting some final touches on it. We don’t have an exact release date yet but I bet it will be closer to those Brooklyn Bowl shows! That’s when we really start hitting the road so we like to do that as a nice set up for the tour. It will be a compilation of some of our favorite songs from the last tour. Whenever we put those out it will be a nice little free thing that you can find at all the regular spots. (Spotify, iTunes, on our website) We like to make it as accessible as possible. Buy yeah, we’ve got a few more tracks that were putting together. We always put our shows up on nugs.net throughout the tour but with the Real TAUK Vols we like to take our favorite tracks and put some finer touches on the mixing and make them sound just a little bit better with a little more work into them and present them that way!.

FS: You recently just released a video from your Rage Rocks show with Lettuce back in June and you’ve also played at Red Rocks Amphitheater with bands including Papadosio, Umphrey’s McGee, STS9, and the String Cheese Incident. What have been some of your favorite moments there, and do you have any plans of headlining a show there anytime soon?!

MJ: That is definitely one of our goals as a band to headline Red Rocks! Hopefully if things keep going as planned and keep heading in the right direction then that will be a reality one day! But even just getting to play there and opening for those other bands has been a dream come true! It’s just a crazy place ya know? It’s special. There’s nothing like it and you can’t really recreate that in any other venue. Just being in a crazy epic location in the mountains between these giant red rocks and the sound is always incredible. Every time we play there it just seems like one of the fastest sets we’ve ever played. It just goes by so quick. You always just want to go back and do it again.

FS: Is there anything else special about the Feed The Beast tour that you would like to talk about?

MJ: The food theme with the tour! Our whole outlook on this is that were a band that loves music but also equally loves food! So part of the concept of this tour is that were going to be seeking some of the best food that we can find throughout the tour so any suggestions that people have about local spots to eat will be great!

FS: Awesome! Thank you again for taking the time to talk with me! I’m really excited to see your sets at Resonance next month and can’t wait to see how the rest of the Feed The Beast Tour goes! Best of luck to you guys!